


Aftermath

by beetle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:49:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for spander132’s prompt: Hope. What if the battle against Glory had ended a bit differently?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU, set between S5 and S6. NON-CON.

  
Why?  
  
Need him to help me take care of the nibblet, don’t I?   
  
Not in the financial sense, that’s for certain. Boy has the earning power of chicken pot pie. Don’t need his help scrounging up dosh, can do that all on my own, me, and despite the sodding chip.  
  
What I need him for is  _her_. Already lost her mum, big sis, the Watcher, the witches. Even demon-girl.   
  
Couldn’t let her lose the last of her family, not when I could save him, so to speak.  
  
Me, the Big Bad, one-quarter of the Scourge of Europe--William the sodding Bloody--rescued him a damsel-fair and her donut-whelp.   
  
Fuck . . . hope this off-white hat I’m wearing don’t clash with the duster.  
  
Not like I had a fucking choice, is it? Promised the Slayer--there’s a sodding laugh, a vamp promising a Slayer something other than death--I’d keep the ‘bit away from the Hellgod-in-Prada, so that’s what I’m doin’.   
  
“And love’s bitch never breaks his promises,” I mutter to myself. The nibblet starts and glances up at me with tired, reddened eyes. A moment later, she’s back to staring at the boy. He’s lying so still on the saggy motel bed and she's got a white-knuckled death-grip on his left hand.  
  
“He’s gonna be all evil, isn’t he?” Her voice is hoarse from all the not-screaming and not-crying she’s been doing.  
  
I shrug, shifting my gaze from her to the dead boy laying between us. “Depends on what you mean by evil. If you mean eatin’ innocent people on a twice nightly basis . . . then yeah. If you mean eatin' you. . . .” I try to reassure her with my smile, but my reassurance days are far behind me, from the unreassured look on her face. So I settle for making her a promise. “I can guarantee you’ll never have to worry about that. Got my word, you have.”  
  
 _I’ll put a stake in his heart before I let him hurt you, love._  
  
“Sh-shouldn’t he be awake by now? Is he--is he dead?” With each word her voice climbs higher, a little closer to the hysteria she’s kept under wraps for nearly three days.  
  
Three days that she’s been unable to sleep, or eat more than a few bites, keeping her vigil at a dead boy’s bedside.  
  
“‘Course he is, pet. As a door-nail. Whether he’s gonna stay that way, that’s the million-dollar question.“ The boy’d had a nasty hole un his side and nearly bled out by the time I got him and the ‘bit safely away from Her Unholiness.  
  
Lord knows  _my_  blood ain’t exactly a can of spinach, ta muchly to the bloody chip. If I’m one-half my full strength, I’ll smile and kiss a Fyarl. If the boy--if he rises up, he’ll be weaker, still.  
  
She watches me over the boy’s corpse, her big blue eyes begging me not to kill off the last of her family by being honest with her.  
  
Guess I’ll always be a sucker for Summers women.  
  
“Harris shoulda died years ago, pet. The clumsy arse bumbles about, bein’ a white knight when he’s got nothin’ in the way of armor, or common sense. . . .” I can’t help but look at the boy and smirk. If he can hear me now, I imagine he’ll have a thing or two to say about this when he wakes up. And I’ll have a lesson or two to teach him about proper filial obedience.   
  
 _If_  he wakes up.  
  
Damnit. Can’t think like that. Gotta put on the brave-face for her, don’t I?   
  
I take Harris’s other hand in my own. It’s cold, even to a vampire. But rigor’s not set in and the hole in his side closed up two days ago; those are good signs.  _Positive signs_.  
  
“Shoulda been some nasty’s meal a long time ago, isn’t that right, Harris? You survived everything else the Hellmouth threw at you and you’ll survive this.”  _In some form, or another._    
  
“Do you think he can hear us when we talk to him?”  
  
The littlest Summers sounds like she might cry no matter what I answer, so I tell her what we both wanna hear. “I  _know_  he can, love. He hears us and he’s fightin’ his way back to us. He’ll wake up this night--or the next, tosser’s always been a bit slow--and he’ll be different, that I will say, but he’ll be here.”  
  
She holds my gaze for a long time, her eyes as wide as saucers in her too-thin face. As soon as the boy wakes up, we’ll take her out, make up for all the meals she’s missed.  
  
“Different,” she whispers, so softly, even I can’t pick out what tone she’s said it in. Her eyes slide away from mine, to the boy’s face and she sighs, pulling his pale hand up to her slightly less pale cheek.   
  
My eyes are drawn to the boy once more. He’s pale and lovely and cold. He smells of death and magic and family . . . but mostly of death and I know, I  _know_  that he’d lost too much blood and mine was simply too weak to save him.  
  
Xander Bloody Harris. My first and only childe. . . .  
  
Been trying not to think about  _how_  different he might be when he rises. How . . . changed. Dunno how much of the decent bloke was Harris and how much was his soul; or  _is_  there a Harris without his bloody soul? The boy seemed to have such an excess of it, atimes.  
  
I wonder if the nibblet can sense it's absence, the way I do.  
  
God, the chip’s turned me into a right useless, broody poof.   
  
The rickety motel chair creaks as I stand up. The ‘bit’s eyes flutter shut and stay that way. She’s trying to stop herself from crying, something that’s become both familiar and painful to watch.   
  
“Steppin’ out for a smoke, pet,” I say unnecessarily. The only reason I’ve left this room at all was to smoke or to get her food she can’t even finish or keep down. “You’ll holler if he moves even a little?”  
  
She nods once, eyelids fluttering more than ever.  
  
That said, I give Harris another looking over. I tell myself that, if he wakes, he’ll be my childe, my responsibility. . . .  
  
 _Mine._  
  
Strange thought, that. Doesn’t stop me getting turned on by thinking it, though. I need a smoke more than ever.  
  
Before I go, I lean down and whisper in Harris’s ear:  
  
“Sire sez, boy, rise soon or you might not rise at all.”  
  
There’s no response, no movement. Dunno why I’m bothering, dunno why I’m not already outside lighting up. Nope, instead I’m kissing his cheek, then his mouth, darting my tongue past his lips, sweeping his teeth and tongue for hints of my own blood. That combined with his own taste-- _familiar_  taste--makes me hard.   
  
Wanting rolls over me like a freight train; wanting him to wake up for the nibblet, wanting there to be enough of him left to help me look after her, make her happy again.  
  
Wanting him to wake up and kiss me back . . . call me  _Sire_. . . .   
  
I break the kiss, backing away from him. Wouldn’t do for the nibblet to see me humping the corpse of her dead brother-figure.  
  
I grab my duster off the other bed and put it on, fishing out my smokes and lighter on my way to the door.   
  
It’s been three nights since I forced as much of my blood as I could down his gullet. Three nights. If he’s gonna rise at all, it’ll be tonight.   
  
If he doesn’t. . . .  
  
Behind me, the nibblet stifles her tears and a jaw-cracker of a yawn.  
  
If he doesn’t rise, well . . . little bit’s gotta sleep sooner or later, and by the time she wakes, the boy’ll be buried and we’ll be a few hundred miles down the road.  
  
“If he moves at all,” I remind her, then step out into the night.  
  



	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for spander132’s prompt: Lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU, set between S5 and S6. Possible squick-factor in this installment.

There  _is_  a difference between being alone and being lonely.  
  
I’m trying to tell myself that I’m neither.  
  
It’s going on four a.m. The nibblet has finally given in and gone to sleep. She’s huddled up into a fetal ball on one bed and on the other bed is a dead man, who may or may not be walking and talking this time tomorrow night.   
  
Me? Well, I seem to be doomed to an existence of feeling sorry for myself while slouching in horribly uncomfortable chairs.   
  
I stand up, my muscles protesting like there’s still circulation to be cut off, and walk over to the boy’s bed. I push the covers back and lay down with him, rolling him to his side so I can spoon up behind him.   
  
No response.  
  
“I know how you’ll feel, love,” I whisper, so low, only a vampire could hear it.  
  
No response.  
  
“The first time you open your eyes, the world’ll be bright and shiny and new, like a bauble you’d notice in the window of a curio shop. The night will be filled with so many strange, wonderful scents; scents like food, like family, like sex, like blood. . . .”  
  
I unzip his blood-stained jeans and snake my hand into his boxers.   
  
No response and I sigh.  
  
“The world will be utterly enthralling,” I tell him as my hand closes on cold, dead flesh that seems determined to remain dead.  
  
“You’ll want nothing more than to sample it’s delights, watched over by your indulgent sire. Always, you’ll feel the demon lurking at the edge of your awareness, ready to take over the moment a likely meal wanders by.”  
  
No response and I try to stroke some life into him, so to speak.   
  
“Sooner, rather than later, the blood of a human will paint your fangs, fill your mouth; warm, salty, sweet, every taste you’ve ever wanted wrapped into one elixir. And you will feel  _life_. . . .  
  
“Ending.”  
  
No response.  
  
I change tactics; push down his jeans and boxers, then unbutton my own fly.   
  
“Once you’ve been blooded, you’ll bound over to me, cocksure and wanting my approval, and I’ll give it, because you’re my boy, my childe, my lovely and you are  _gorgeous_  when you hunt. You’re brave and brilliant and beautiful . . . everything a sire could possibly want. And I do want you, pet. I’ll tell you with caresses and kisses and I’ll taste humanity on you, some of which will be your own.”   
  
No response and I’m in gameface, now. I graze the skin of his neck with my fangs, creating two shallow cuts that don’t bleed.  
  
“I will relish that humanity, because in a few nights’ time, all that I’ll taste is the childe I sired.”  
  
Still no response. I stop stroking his cock and start stroking my own. In seconds, I’m hard.  
  
“For the moment, however, the flush of your skin, occasioned by all the human blood you’ve taken will make you warm to the touch. I’ll be reminded strongly of the human you were . . . the human I wanted increasingly, as time passed. I’ll remember wanting to feel his blood pulsing into my mouth, hot, sweet and thick, and my lips will travel the smooth, white column of your neck and sink into your jugular. . . .”  
  
I slide my tongue across a fang till blood seeps out, then put two fingers in my mouth, coating them with blood and spit.  
  
“ _Sire . . . yes. . . ._ , you’ll urge, eager and pliant in my arms. You’ll pull my hips forward, pushing your cock against my own, hands moving to grip my arse so hard I’ll have bruises later. You’ll tremble, torn between wanting to fuck me and wanting to be fucked  _by me_  . . . but I’m sire, so the choice is mine to make. . . .”  
  
For a moment I waver. I can’t seriously mean to fuck a stone-cold corpse with the ‘bit sleeping five feet away.  
  
But far from turning me off, the idea of having my way with Harris’s body just makes me harder.  
  
And the ‘bit’s sleeping so deep, a steel drum band wouldn’t wake her.  
  
I take a breath I don’t need and let it out before rolling Harris onto his stomach, pushing his legs apart.  
  
No response.  
  
“Since you were a virgin when I turned you, and because you’ve just fed, your body will be both tight and warm around me. . . .”  
  
I kneel between his legs and push my fingers into him.   
  
He’s tight and  _cold_  and there’s still no response.  
  
I scissor my fingers and brush his prostate, hoping for the slightest moan or twitch.  
  
No response.  
  
I remove my fingers and and stroke my cock a few more times, smearing blood, spit and pre-come down it’s length. That’ll have to do for lube. I hold him open and lower my body to his. “I’ll hustle you to the latest of the cars I’ve boosted since leaving Sunnyhell -” I nip his earlobe.   
  
“Bend you over the hood -” the tip of my cock brushes his opening and I shiver.  
  
“And  _take you._ ”   
  
One hard, quick thrust and I’m in, breaking him open. For a moment, I’m a little disoriented.  
  
Then, I’m fucking Harris’s body hard enough that his head thuds against the headboard. Even after a dozen thrusts, the friction is only slightly less overwhelming. I'm not gonna last long, and the fact that I’m smut-talking a corpse isn't slowing me down.  
  
“ . . . take you hard, take you fast, pet . . . just to feel all that lovely stolen blood wet my cock, just to hear you scream -”  
  
No response, but he’s so tight, I can almost pretend he  _is_  responding to me, clenching his muscles around me and begging me to never, ever leave him.  
  
Calling me  _sire_  and asking me to keep him.  
  
“Mine, pet, all mine, now -” I tell him. I reach up to touch his face, a caress that also gets no response, only--it feels as if his head's turning slightly to the left, into my touch. . . .  
  
“Wake up, pet, wake up for Spike. Wake up for  _sire_ ,” I beg and it's pure imagination, the way the tight, cold body under me moves, the way his muscles seem to grip me. He’s not awake, because if he was, he'd be babbling.  
  
Soul or not, he's still bloody  _Harris_.  
  
But when he does wake up . . . oh, when he wakes up. . . .  
  
“Love--!”  
  
Then I’m coming, and coming is bloody  _painful_ , desperate and despairing. I have to bite into my own wrist, ‘cause if I don’t, I’ll try to drink from him. The idea of drinking blood that may be three days dead is . . . not appealing.  
  
It feels like everything I am is pouring out of me and into him. If I had a soul, I’d be shooting that, too.   
  
Then I’m collapsing on top of him. I’m panting like someone who still has a pulse, but I still can’t get enough air I feel -  
  
\- not quite like a bastard, though I should. I just fucked the corpse of Sunnyhell’s last champion, across the room from a sleeping and traumatized teeny-bopper. That has to be some new low, doesn't it?  
  
Yeah, there’s still the usual self-loathing, but underneath it, in that place where my soul used to be--then where my love for Dru used to be--is something familiar. Something that glows and burns within me, chasing away some of the despair.  
  
He’s  _mine_ , now. My own, my childe. Whether he rises and I wake up to a horny, hungry vamp or I wake up to the sound of the nibblet's tears and cuddling a pile of ash this evening, he’s still mine.  
  
His body is still cold, is still  _still_ , is still not responding.   
  
I roll us onto our sides again, spooning him, and pull the covers up to our chests--we’re a mess the ‘bit does  _not_  need to see.   
  
I bury my face in his soft, dark hair and pick up where I left off.  
  
“By the time false dawn sets off the preternatural warning bells, we’ll have ditched the car,” I whisper, when I’m capable of coherent speech again. “Simply wouldn’t do to have the nibblet see when we’ve done with it. Made a promise to look after her. Haven’t done the best job of it, so far, but keeping her from seeing a blood-and-come soaked Dodge Neon? That’s a step in the right direction, I’m thinking.”  
  
No response.   
  
I hold him tighter and close my eyes.  
  
“So you’ll pick up some food for the 'bit--you’ll still remember enough of your old self to know what’s most likely to whet her appetite--and I’ll steal us another car. By the time we get back to the motel, it’ll almost be light. We’ll leave the food on her dresser and go to bed for the day . . . maybe I’ll purr till you fall asleep. Though it’s more of a non-threatening growl, actually."  
  
No response. Still no bloody response.  
  
“You slow git,” I murmur into his hair. “When the sun sets, we’ll all hit the road for points east. Won’t stop till we hit ocean and then -”  
  
A soft moan from across the room snaps me out of my little fantasy. The nibblet’s breathing is deep, even and, other than that moan, is the only sound in the room. She smells like misery and weariness and there’s nothing  _I_  can do to change that.   
  
The only thing that could change it is currently playing dead.   
  
"So," I tell Harris's corpse. "I find myself sharing a motel room with a deeply unconscious girl and the dead champion I just raped. I would guess that means technically, I'm alone . . . which would explain the bloody great alone-ness--bugger that,  _loneliness_  that settles over me."  
  
But that spark inside still glows, lighting up my darkness. It may mean everything . . . or it may mean nothing.   
  
I just don’t know.   
  



	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for spander132’s prompt: Predatory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU, set between S5 and S6.

The boy woke up, alright.   
  
In the middle of the fourth afternoon, when I was out cold, the first time I’d slept in nearly a week. I didn’t sense him stir, didn’t sense those dark, empty eyes open.  
  
Didn’t feel him slither out of my arms and over to Dawn’s bed.  
  
Didn’t hear the ‘bit’s slow, even heartbeat change when he woke her up.   
  
But I did hear her screams when he tried to drink from her.  
  
He had her pinned to the bed, his fangs bare inches from her jugular. I was on my feet and across the room in a hearbeat--grabbed the boy off her and threw him across the room. There was a crunch as his vertebra and the back of his skull shattered, then a silence broken only by the nibblet’s gasping whimpers. She was all shivers and wide eyes, staring past me at what was left of Sunnyhell’s white knight.  
  
“Are you alright, love?” I sat next to her, pulled her into my arms and tucked her face into my neck, blocking any view of my idiot childe. The way her pulse was racing made the scent of her blood especially strong. It smelled of youth and innocence and power.  
  
Right pissed off as I was at what my bloody-minded, idiot childe had tried to do, part of me understood all too well the temptation.  
  
But for the moment, the only person I could worry about was the girl trembling in my arms.  
  
“He tried to bite me. . . .” She was too shell-shocked to be accusatory, but I was already doing a fine job of kicking myself.  
  
“He’s just--confused, is all. Told you childer wake up hungry and stupid, right? Usually not before sunset, but Harris always has to do things barse-ackwards.”  
  
Though I really didn’t expect a chuckle, I got one. It was at least half-sob, but the half that was chuckle warmed my undead heart. William the Bloody Softy, that's me.  
  
“He hurt you in any way?” I asked, leaning back to look into her eyes. It was a few seconds before she could meet my gaze.  
  
“No, he was, um . . . pretty clumsy. And slow . . . I don’t think he knows those funky martial-arts moves, yet. The ones you guys seem to come out of the ground knowing.”   
  
“Like I said, Harris is a slow git, even on the best of days." I smiled and she returned it, tears sparkling in her eyes. A moment later she laid her head on my shoulder again and started to cry.  
  
"Pet, poor pet,” I murmured, stroking her hair. “Don’t worry, he’s still new, so he’s gonna do stupid things, occasionally. But  _that_  will never happen again. If it does, I’ll stake him myself.”  
  
“I don’t want Xander to die, Spike.”  
  
“He’s already dead, love. And if he can’t behave himself around you, I’ll just make him a bit deader. Won’t let anyone hurt you, not even my own childe.”  
  
That was the first time I consciously admitted to myself that expecting Harris’s demon to care for Dawn the way Harris used to--the way I still do--wasn’t the wisest, or safest course of action.  
  
I tilted my head just enough to get look at my childe, laying in a crumpled heap against the wall. Dark hair hid his eyes and his face, but I could smell the blood trickling from his nose. It was dark and rich, like coffee, but sweet like chocolate, with a tangy, bitter edge to it, like sun-warmed copper, like magic.  
  
 _Mine,_  I thought, and on the heels of that:  _He’s not gonna make this easy. Of course he isn’t, he’s Xander Bloody Harris, the boy with more mouth than brains or respect -_  
  
God, that’s what Angelus used to say about me. . . .  
  
Dawn sniffed and shivered in my arms. Her heartbeat was quick and erratic, racing like a frightened rabbit.  
  
Which only drove home what I needed to do, and before too much time passed.   
  


*

  
  
So, here I sit in the same uncomfortable chair, alternately watching scrambled porn and watching the naked boy manacled to my bed.   
  
It’s just after sunset. Dawn is curled up in bed and dozing in front of the telly . . . in the room adjacent to ours. Can’t have her in here, witnessing what’s about to happen. Hopefully the boy’ll see reason before sun-up. I’d hate to have to drag this out over more than one night.  
  
“Spike?” When he wakes, his voice is muzzy, bleary. I keep my eyes on the telly, but I can’t make out much between the wavy lines and static.  
  
"Sire? I can't move my legs . . . I'm hurt. . . ."  
  
It’s not his fault, really, I know that. He’s not human, anymore. To expect human reactions from him is setting myself and the ‘bit up for disappointment. One thing I will continue to expect, however is obedience.  
  
With some childer, there’s only one way to get that point across.  
  
I leave him to his puling and chain-rattling for nearly half an hour before pretending to have just noticed him. “Oh. Awake, are we, Harris?”  
  
“I'm hungry, Sire.” He looks at me with those big, soulless brown eyes and tugs at the manacles.   
  
“I know you are, lovely. Tried to eat the nibblet, didn’t you?”  
  
All I get is a blank, slightly daffy, utterly adoring stare. Other than trying to murder Dawn, I’m not seeing much difference between vamp!Harris and souled!Harris.   
  
"Play the Zeppo with me and I’ll take the skin off you. Don’t think I won’t, either,” I warn. Wouldn’t do for the boy to think I was bluffing. I’d once made the mistake of thinking Angelus was bluffing when he made me that same promise.   
  
Took nearly two weeks for all my skin to grow back, but whatever I’d done to earn that punishment, I never did it again.  
  
The quality of the boy’s stare changes--he doesn’t flash the demon at me, I’d have broken his face for the impudence--but something about it becomes calculating and cold . . . yet still painfully adoring.   
  
“Of course I tried to eat her. She’s food.”  
  
“No, she’s  _Dawn_ , and she’s under my protection, which means she gets treated like the Queen, Herself, Harris. You’re not some brainless fledge, you’re a childe.  _My_  childe. You remember enough from before I turned you to know I won’t let anyone touch the ‘bit.”  
  
“You can’t eat her, so no one else can?” Harris smiles again, as if to take the sting out of his words; that same smile makes bints, children and frightened animals want to trust him, I'm sure. If they could see the darkness in that smile now . . . I think trust’d be the farthest thing from their minds. “That’s not exactly Vulcan logic,  _Sire_.”  
  
“Doesn’t have to be, does it?” I give him a badrudeman grin. “ _Nothing_  I do has to make a lick of sense to you. You just have to worry about keeping me happy. Which means little 'bit is  _off limits_  and you protect her with your unlife.”   
  
The boy blinks at me. “ _But I’m hungry_ ,” he says slowly, enunciating each word, as if he’s explaining physics to a moron, not addressing his bleeding  _Sire_.  
  
Tsk-tsk.  
  
“Right. That’s worth a strip of skin from somewhere . . . what’s your poison? Inner arm or inner thigh?” I take out my switchblade--came with the duster; gotta love a Slayer with imagination--and press it to the skin just above his navel. A little bit of pressure and blood'd well right out. . . .  
  
“You made me, Spike. You know how it feels,” the boy says softly, closing his eyes.  
  
“What? The hunger? Oh, I know. More than you would, at this point. But you shouldn't let hunger make you stupid and disrespectful, boy, isn’t that right?” I wait for him to nod. “Good. Now, inner arm, or inner thigh?”  
  
“Thigh,” he says, probably because all the feeling hasn’t quite returned to his legs. I grin wider.  
  
“Arm it is, then!” I straddle his legs and lean down to kiss him. For all of a split second, he stubbornly refuses to respond; but then he’s arching up under me, trying to press his body to mine.   
  
His legs may not be working quite right, but his cock is hard and poking against my stomach.  
  
“Please, I’m so hungry, Spike. . . .”  
  
“I know, pet. I know,” I whisper on his lips before slipping my tongue past them. He still tastes noticeably human, still tastes like my blood. And he’ll be needing more of it before moonset.  
  
He’s wavering between humanface and gameface, now, his teeth/fangs lightly scoring my lips and tongue. He's smart enough not to go for my blood without permission, but I break the kiss anyway and sit up. He moans and tries to follow me, all hardness and bloodlust, and the manacles bring him up short.   
  
Once he's got his face under control, he gives me a look that--under the right circumstances--would prompt me to fuck him through the nearest wall. As it is, I'm one, breathy  _Sire_  away from chucking in this little object lesson.  
  
“May I--please,  _Sire_?”   
  
“No, childe, you may not. You'll get sire’s blood when I feel you’ve learned your lesson,” I tell him, though it hurts me to do so, hurts right in that spot where the soul used to be. Now, instead of a soul or love for my sire, that place is wholly filled with a strong sense of possession, and protectiveness towards this thing I’ve created.  
  
Damnit, I’m only doing right by the boy, making sure he doesn’t become a slave to the hunger, like some fledgling! Making sure he respects and obeys me--one day, his continued existence may depend on his ability to follow my orders!  
  
Maybe if he gets it through his thick skull that what I say goes, I won’t have to end him this night or the next.  
  
Perhaps he senses this, sees it in my eyes. He stops wriggling when I touch the tip of the switchblade to the inside of his left elbow and press inward, wedging the blade just up under his skin.   
  
“I’ll never be as cruel to you as Angelus was to me, love, but you've gotta learn not to fuck with me when it comes to Dawn's safety,” I say as slowly and clearly as possible, so there's no misunderstandings. The boy nods once, saucer-eyed and wary.  
  
"Yes, Sire."  
  
Without breaking eye contact, I trap his skin between my thumb and the blade and tug upwards slowly, towards his armpit. He gasps and closes his eyes, biting his lip until blood drools down his chin. But he doesn’t scream or beg. I’m so bloody proud of him in that moment, love him so bloody much.  
  
“For your own good, pet.” I try to keep my voice steady, but that’s nearly impossible. I want to kiss him, to fuck him, to hold and keep him. “You shouldn't defy me, or push me. Can’t have the tail wagging the dog, can I?”  
  
Yeah, right, like that hasn't already happened. If I'm fooling anyone, it's not me. Every word out of my mouth, every new millimeter of cold muscle revealed by the blade is me begging him to let me keep him.  
  
 _Don’t make me kill you,_  the demon is saying.  
  
“Sire, please -” there are tears in the boy’s eyes and the flap of skin grows longer as he jerks involuntarily. The muscle underneath is reddish/pinkish grey. No blood seeps out, yet.  
  
“Hush, pet. . . when it’s over, I’ll make you better, I promise.” I give in to temptation--that’s what he is, now, one big temptation--and lean down to lick at the blood that’s run down to his neck and is dripping uselessly into the pillow. I follow the trail up to his mouth and take his bottom lip between my teeth.   
  
“Please. . . .” he’s quivering, tears running down his face. For a moment, I think he’s pleading because he’s craven, and can't bear the the pain. Then I realize he’s still bucking up, trying to rub off against me.  
  
Bastard’s not only still hard, he’s getting his jollies while I punish him.  
  
“Bloody hell,” I’m breathing, panting. “Bloody, buggering, sodding  _hell_!”  
  
Can’t say this is a side of Harris I ever expected to see, vamp or not. Part of me refuses to believe he’s getting off on being flayed. I yank a little harder and now the boy’s got a skinless swatch of arm about half and inch wide and four inches long. Blood is starting to drip from around the edges of the cut.  
  
“Didn’t give you permission to enjoy this, did I?” Far from sounding unamused and detached, my voice is hoarse and shaken.  
  
“Sire, Spike-- _please_?” There’s nothing as sophisticated as  _expectation_  in those dark, hungry eyes, but there’s  _need_. More need than anyone’s ever directed my way, which raises an interesting question.  
  
Carrot, or stick. . . ?  
  
“Fuck,” I mutter, leaning down not to kiss him, but to suck and lick at the edges of the cut, catching every drop of his blood on my tongue, letting them roll down my throat, quenching a thirst I didn’t even know I had. His taste is . . . indescribable.   
  
By the time I’m done tasting and yeah, teasing, the boy’s thrashing. One hand on the center of his chest and he goes utterly still, looking up at me with flickering, gold/brown eyes.   
  
“Wanna come, love?”   
  
He nods frantically, making whimpery, wheezy sounds, like he’s forgotten he’s no longer dependent on oxygen. “She’s off limits, pet, to you or any other nasty takes it into his head to make her a meal, understand?”   
  
“Never hurt yes Sire yes please now let me god please promise--!” He’s babbling and gasping and shaking.   
  
 _That’ll do for tonight, time to put him out of his misery,_  I decide, then I rip the strip away with a good, hard yank.   
  
The boy roars into gameface and comes all over us both.  
  



	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for spander132’s prompt: Enthralled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU, set between S5 and S6.

You’d never know he’s dead; he still breathes, even in his sleep.  
  
I find myself enrapt by the smallest details of him: his hair flopping onto his forehead, no matter how many times I brush it away. The fact that he’s actually starting to snore a bit. The way his gameface had slowly melted away, leaving the same innocent, untroubled face I spent many a basement night obsessing over. . . .  
  
After my little lesson, I’d bandaged his left arm with a piece of torn bedding then removed the right manacle. The left one comes off when I’m a bit more certain of him.   
  
Now, I’m spooned up next to him, all cozy, one arm draped over his waist, the other serving as his pillow . . . I brush his floppy hair off his face yet again and kiss down the line of his neck.   
  
His complexion is fading under what’s left of his tan. The way the color’s leaching out of him, Harris’ll probably wind up white as scalded milk. Dunno if I like that; I’ve grown accustomed to his bronzy, SoCal looks and fishbelly-white vamps are so very last century. . . .  
  
Who'm I kidding? If the boy turned green, that wouldn't stop me watching him, wanting him.  
  
Not that anyone would blame me. Harris was always pretty, with those big, dark eyes that begged the world not to hurt him, even as he cracked his lame jokes and smiled his idiot smiles.   
  
Now, no amount of pretty can hide the what's underneath--not from eyes that can see such things. The harmless, boy-next-door face and sweet, silly smile--these things are a facade, a mask that hides an undead predator. The vulnerability that still twinkles out of his eyes? A bit of artifice that imitates life more completely than any masterpiece I’ve ever seen.   
  
He’s a natural born killer and  _I_  made him.  
  
Which makes  _me_  bloody Picasso, I suppose.  
  
I turn him onto his side and pull his right leg back over mine, sliding between his cheeks, brushing his opening, breaching him with just the tip of my cock . . . fuck, it'd be easy to just  _take_  him like this. I have every right to. He’s mine now, all mine.   
  
“But we’ve been down this road before, haven’t we, pet?" I pull out of him completely, shaking with the effort that is self-restraint. "You sleeping like the dead--which you are--and me trying to wake you with a kiss . . . among other things.”  
  
No response from the undead boy sleeping in my arms; I’m hard enough to pound nails, been this way for hours--and I could’ve taken him any time because it’s my right, and his duty to acquiesce.   
  
But the remains of William the Bloody Victorian have a nasty habit of pointing out that I got the same treatment when I was new.  
  
And I’d hated Angelus as much as I’d ever loved him, hadn’t I?   
  
Less than one night and I’m already addicted to the abject adoration in his gaze. Less than one night and I already want to be a better sire for him than either of mine were for me. I don’t want our--relationship soured by bitterness or calculating hatred.   
  
“Come on, pet . . . I know I took a lot out of you, but that’s over, now, clean slate. I wanna make it good for you, love. Wake up.” I hug my boy closer, nose pressed to his nape.  
  
“This is your sire, Xander,” I murmur into his hair. Can’t really explain sire-voice--it’s a cross between lover and drill-sergeant--but I’ve been hearing it roll out of me since last night. “ _Wake up_.”   
  
Less than a second later, he draws a slightly deeper breath then lets it out in a long, contented sigh.  
  
“‘Lo, pretty,” I say, so low even I can barely hear it.   
  
He sighs again, snuggling closer and turning to look up at me; his remaining manacle clinks softly with the motion. A soft growl that  _is_  a purr when a ponce like Harris does it, makes me want to barricade the door to the room and keep him in here forever, away from anyone and everyone else.   
  
He looks into my eyes for a nearly a minute, not searching, just--looking. He's lost his soul, but there’s still something bright shining out of him.   
  
Bright  _darkness_.   
  
 _So much for my theory that my blood’d be too weak to give him any real power. His darkness could swallow me whole if I let it . . ._ I think with a twinge of something that isn’t quite apprehension.  _Hell help us all, if Dru’s powers were in her blood--_ our _blood--and I’ve passed them on to him. . . ._  
  
But the boy blinks and whatever thrall, if thrall it was, is broken, my suspicions chased away by a sweet, sunny smile; makes me want to kiss him, so I do. His lips are cold and soft, his mouth tastes faintly of blood and desperation.   
  
“ _Spike_.” God, the way he says my name makes it sound like  _Sire_  and I want him so bad I don’t how I’ve restrained myself this long. I turn him onto his left side and drag his right back leg over mine again. A quick moment to make sure my angle’s true and I’m burying my cock in his cool, tight body. We both gasp, but neither of us move, save for the fluttering of muscles torn between fighting me and accepting me.  
  
“Okay . . .  _ouch_  and  _oh, God, more_!”   
  
I bite his shoulder hard enough to leave a monster of a hickey, but not hard enough to break skin. “You alright then, pet?” Not what I should be asking, I suppose. If he was anyvamp’s child but mine, that vamp’d be more likely to ask: _lesson learned then, pet?_  
  
“Let’s see . . . still manacled to the bed, laying in sheets that are still tacky with my own blood--still missing a few inches of skin, and taking it up the ass from a homicidal vampire? Actually, I’ve never been better in my whole life. My whole existence. . . .” he laughs a little, his face turned away from mine, and further obscured by his damn floppy hair. “That’s pretty fucked up.”  
  
“Be serious, pillock.” As gentle as if I’m talking to Dru during one of her fits. If he can muster the energy to crack wise, he must be fine, but I want to hear him say it.   
  
He glances back at me and smiles so warmly, looks so bloody  _human_  . . . he’d take my breath away if it wasn’t over a century too late for that.  
  
“I’ve been worse . . . but rarely better,” he adds in a  _fuck me_  voice I’d never heard him use when he was alive. And as soon as I find some finesse, some sodding self-control, I’ll be happy to oblige him.   
  
“Is that so?”  
  
He tilts his face up to mine for another kiss. I study him for a moment--the fading tan, still-kissable lips and sooty lashes framing half-closed eyes--before placing the chastest of kisses on the corner of his mouth.  
  
“Like being disciplined, do you?” My voice isn’t exactly steady, remembering the look on his face when I tore that swatch of skin off him; remembering that he came like he’d been fucked to a fare-thee-well, my name ripped out of his throat like a howl.   
  
“When you’re the one doing the disciplining?  _Oh, yeah_ ,” curls out from his lips like cigarette smoke.   
  
“Well, you’re just all sorts of surprises lately, pet,” I tell him and he flashes me a half-arsed version of his idiotic zeppo-grin. But I know what he is, what’s been hiding underneath that soul of his all this time. “All sorts of lovely surprises.”  
  
I take his hand and wrap it around his cock, encouraging him to stroke. By the time I let go of his hand, his cock’s doing it’s damnedest to lay flat against his belly and he’s shivering.   
  
“Anyway, at least you’re not hurting me ‘cause you hate me . . . .” Uncertainty makes the bright darkness that radiates from him flicker and dim. “Or am I assuming too much?”  
  
I shrug. “I guess you could call this non-hatred, yeah.”   
  
“Thank you, Sire.” He glances back at me anxiously, managing to blush despite his lack of circulation. Bloody eery that he has that much control over his body and newly risen. “If you don’t hate me, does that mean you, um,  _lo_ \--”  
  
“Do I plan on keepin’ you?” I cut in before he can finish that endearingly stammered little trap. Just a week ago, it was so easy to forget that he could play at being the Zeppo seamlessly, wore that mantle like Superman wears Clark Kent. But it most certainly wouldn’t do to forget  _now_. “That what you wanna know?”  
  
Harris nods. “Dunno. Suppose I just might, provided you remember how to behave around the ‘bit.”  
  
“I was stupid and disrespectful to you, and to Dawn.  _Dawnie_ ,” he says contritely. “I was wrong, Sire, wrong and stupid and I’ll try to be a better childe. I won’t ever make you sorry you turned me.”  
  
He projects such earnestness and honesty. I don’t believe a damn bit of it, but I do believe he’ll behave himself around the nibblet and that’s good enough, for now. “Don’t be too pious, love . . . might wanna discipline you every now and again.” I pull out and drive right back into him, hard and fast, destroying this demonic  _Hallmark_ -moment before it draws out any longer.   
  
“Oh, fuck,  _Spike_!” Really, it’s as if the boy finds a way to add ten extra syllables to my name. Bloody hell, what that does to me . . . what  _he_  does to me.  
  
“Was there something you needed, love?” Like I don’t already know every little dirty want or need that's making his cock twitch like a frog on a hot skillet. I put my wrist up to his lips for intensive nuzzling and licking and . . . nothing else. He’s smart, alright. Smarter than I was when I was first turned. He learns his lessons quickly and well. “Alright, come on, boy. Out with it. Tell me what you need.”   
  
“Fuck, Spike--need  _you_ ,” he breathes meeting each and every thrust eagerly, apparently trying to tear himself apart on me. But the careful, nipping bites on my wrist don’t even come close to breaking skin. “Please, Sire,  _please_ \--I love you, please let me?”  
  
 _Bugger, I couldn’t dust you now, even if I wanted to . . . and you know that, don’t you, pet? You manipulative little bastard . . . ._  
  
A growl and pull my wrist away; he freezes, then offers his neck, the picture of perfect, dutiful submission. Such a clever, clever boy. We’re going to have such fun together.  
  
“Can hardly say no to such pretty manners as that, can I?”   
  
“No, say yes, please say yes, need you, need you--" he begs. He's shaking and thrashing so much, I have to turn him on his stomach and hold him down just to stay in him. Fucking him's like riding an unbroken horse.  
  
I cover his body with my own and kiss neck gently.  
  
“You are evil. Beautiful, manipulative, clever and  _evil_. . . .” dirty nothings I whisper in his ear as he writhes and shudders against me, calling me  _Sire_  and  _pleaseohpleaseharderohfuckohgodharder_. “Think I _will_  keep you, pet.”  
  
“Please keep me, don’t let me go, I promise, I’ll beha--“  
  
I stop his babble the only way I know how. I bring my wrist to his lips again. “Go on, boy, it’s past time.”  
  
Sudden as death, his fangs pierce my wrist like needles, rather than the mini-chainsaws I’d been expecting. He draws my blood slowly, steadily, doesn’t guzzle it despite his injuries and hunger. This is the first time I’ve ever willingly let someone other than Dru feed from me.   
  
But she’s just a memory, now, another fading regret. A lovelier, darker pair of eyes has eclipsed her eyes; a harder, stronger form has burned away the longing for her angular softness.   
  
He’s  _my_  childe; barely out of the ground--so to speak--and already got me wrapped around his fangs.   
  
The scary bit is how badly I want to be wrapped. Whether through guile, or thrall, or loneliness, what it boils down to is: love's bitch has gone and done it again.   
  
Oh, bloody hell.


	5. On the Prowl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fic in the Aftermath!verse for the spander132 mood-ring prompt: “flirty”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Very AU from the end of S5, vamp!Xander.

He’s hot and so out of my league.   
  
Sitting alone at his table, pale and pretty under thick, dark hair, eyes as wide and dramatic as a Bollywood starlet. . . .  
  
He’s probably here to meet a date, not get cruised or ogled by every loser in this place. Not that that’s stopping any of us. I’m one of maybe a dozen guys having braingasms while mentally undressing him.  
  
And I’m the only one brave enough--read:  _stupid enough_ \--to approach him. Of course, by the time I get to his table, I’m giving my deodorant a run for it’s money.  
  
“Excuse me--” I turn on the old charm as he looks up at me. “Mind if I sit with you?”  
  
The guy’s obviously about to say no, he’d prefer to sit alone, when we make eye contact and I’m--  
  
 _deepdarkwildbrightlovelydangerousohholygodhiseyes_  
  
\--caught.  
  
He blinks once, slowly, and I’m surfacing, like climbing out of a heated pool on a cold night.   
  
“This place is a madhouse tonight, or I wouldn’t impose.” I plonk my Rolling Rock on the table and my ass in the best seat in the bar. The momentary glitch has thankfully passed; my brain is rebooting like a pro.  
  
The devastating eyes scan me before glancing pointedly around the bar . . . at all the empty tables and seats still available. I grin and shrug, hoping he’s one of those mythological guys that’s not repulsed by goofballs.   
  
“It’s a free country.” His voice is soft, rich; not wild with welcome, but he’s not telling me to go fuck myself, either. When his gaze travels the bar again, I take another good look at the guy that comes with those  _eyes_.  
  
He’s kinda muscular, confident and relaxed; wearing “distressed” blue jeans, a faded acapulco shirt over a white t-shirt and battered Converse All-Stars--a thrift-store hipster if ever there was one.  
  
Not usually my type, but man, oh, man could I acquire a taste for guys like him . . . or maybe him in particular.  
  
“Used to be this place wasn’t such a meat-market, but I guess the times, they are a-changin’.” God, that was a pitiful attempt at an ice-breaker. Not that I’m normally James Bond or something, but I haven’t been on my game since we made eye contact.  
  
He looks at me again, all calmly assessing eyes and wry smile, and I’m frozen, like a fly in amber. Turns out The Smile is just as devastating as The Eyes, spurring me to stammer on like a coked-up monkey.  
  
“Not that I make a habit of coming to places like this . . . I’m not much of a cruiser, but sometimes I just feel like a night out--”   
  
“You got a name to go with that line of bullshit?” He takes a sip of his Magner’s, his eyes never leaving mine. Looking into his eyes is a little like getting vertigo, and he  _knows_  it, too. He’s  _used_  to guys looking into his eyes and going all babbley and lame. It amuses him.  
  
I sift my gaze to slightly above is eyes and that vertiginous feeling passes, but my mouth is already moving without my brain’s dubious input. ”Sure do! John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, and you are--?”   
  
At the hipster’s quirked eyebrow, my face turns red--and probably blotchy, God bless my genes--and I immerse myself in peeling the label off my beer. “Sorry, humor’s not only my defense against a cruel, uncaring world, but also the means by which I ensnare guys in my web of seduction. It might actually work, some night. Not  _to_ night, but some night, is all I’m saying,” I add at his incredulous snort.   
  
“Yeah? Well, good luck with that, John,” he says dismissively, standing up to walk away. Not that I don’t mind the view of his ass--and  _what_  an ass, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what an ass--but I haven’t finished working my mojo, such as it is.  
  
“Wait, please--” I jump up, reaching out to touch his arm, but I don’t quite dare when those gorgeous, disturbing eyes meet mine yet again. All of a sudden, I’m seventeen, sweating and stammering my way through asking Becky Slidell to junior prom.   
  
“Look, can we just travel back in time to, like, before I nixed any miniscule chance I might have had with you?” I hold out my hand, but the hipster doesn’t take it. “My name’s Jesse . . . and you are?”  
  
He still isn’t taking my hand and he’s gone extremely pale. A neat trick, considering he already looks like he might need a transfusion. I’ve seen primer with more color than this guy.  
  
“Jesse?” That amused self-confidence has been replaced by a look of blank surprise that can’t bode well for my chances of escorting him home tonight.   
  
“Thatsa me. . . Jesse Rawlins, but people just call me J.R. Except for that dirty bitch my father married, she calls me  _the faggot stepson_ \--which makes me wonder what she says about me behind my back--but the less said about her, the better.” I’m grinning and yeah, it’s hardly possible, but I’m making my chances even worse by turning this into free therapy.  
  
Hey, maybe that time-travel line’ll work twice . . . ah, who’m I kidding? It didn’t even work the first time.  
  
“Your name is Jesse?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”   
  
"But everyone calls you J.R."   
  
I nod. It seems like the wisest course of action. But y'know, if this was some freaky alternate universe where I got laid on a nightly basis--shut up, I said  _alternate_ , damnit--and I was some super-suave alternate me, I’d think he was some guy I’d already boinked and forgotten, only to try to pick him up again because I didn’t remember him.  
  
But this is  _this_  universe and I’m this  _me_  and I remember every one of the less than twenty guys I’ve done the mattress mambo with. I’d never forget  _this_  one, not in a million years.  
  
“ _Jesse_ ,” he says wonderingly, looking me over like he’s gonna devour me. I’m torn between squirming and coming in my pants. The story of my life.  
  
“Look, if you wanna run off into the night screaming, feel free,” I tell him. We’ve barely had an entire conversation and I feel like I’ve run a 10k. “Honestly, I get that a lot. Usually not this early on, but hey, I’m breaking my own record, so I should be proud, right? Go, me!”   
  
I tip an imaginary hat to him, snag my beer and head for the bar. This night’s going weird in a way that I’m rapidly losing interest in.   
  
I’m halfway to the bar, chugging the rest of my bottle when a cool hand closes on my arm, sending a scalding wave of  _want_  through my body like electrical current. But I’m strong. I’m not gonna let this guy, no matter how hot he is, yank my chain back and forth.  
  
“Wait, I didn’t--it’s not you, it’s me--”  
  
 _Now_ there’s _something I’ve never heard before,_  I think, turning to give him a sarcastic smile. He drops my arm reluctantly, blushing and looking anywhere but my eyes.  
  
“I just--I had a friend named Jesse. And you . . . you kinda remind me of him, a little and it threw me for a loop.” The way he’s sneaking peeks at me and the noticeable quaver in his voice says maybe more than  _a little_  and for more than  _a loop_.   
  
It’s like we’ve switched roles and he’s the one who’s off his game and desperate. If I wanted, I could turn his aloof-act back on him--payback’s a bitch--and really make  _him_  squirm.  
  
But fuck that, I don’t play mind games.   
  
“Was this other Jesse also a debonair and rakishly handsome man?” I ask, smiling a little.   
  
Something like surprise--something like  _pain_ \--flares behind his eyes, but he chuckles. “Uh, try  _funny_  and  _had a great personality_.”  
  
“Ouch!” I cover my heart with my hand and stagger backward melodramatically, nearly spilling the rest of my beer all over myself. “You’ve wounded me to the core!”  
  
“Jesse was also kinda obnoxious.” The hipster is still chuckling, but that wounded look has left his eyes and they’re bright again, with something that might be a distant species of--dare I say?--interest.  
  
“ _Sexy_ -obnoxious?” I flash him my bridge-work.  
  
“Maybe,” he allows, taking me in with that slow, predatory, intense once-over that makes me feel both over- and underdressed. When I return the favor, he looks down at his hands with a shy smile.  
  
“Maybe is good, maybe I can work with.” I hold out my hand and this time he takes it without hesitation. His grip is firm and cool and I wonder if he’s as cool inside as he is out. My chances of finding out are looking better and better. “I’m J.R. and you’re  _awfully_  gorgeous to be so single.”  
  
The glance he shoots me is meek, almost coy, and he hasn’t let go of my hand. “Xander. And what makes you so sure I’m single? How do you know I'm not here to meet my  _very_  possessive boyfriend, who's got a vicious temper and a really short fuse . . . who'd just as soon kill you as look at you?"  
  
Yeah, right. A quality guy like Xander is gonna be caught dead dating a jerk like  _that_? Nuh-uh, I don't think so.   
  
"See, if you had a bruiser like that for a boyfriend, he’d probably never let you out of his sight,” I say, tugging his hand so he’ll follow me to the back of the bar and the relative privacy of a booth. “Not when some obnoxious, funny guy with a great personality could just sweep you right off your feet.”  
  


*

  
  
“. . . and there I was, broke as a joke and up on a stage in front of dozens of screaming, predatory women, shaking my ass for the money they threw.” Xander smiles self-deprecatingly and my heart beats a little faster.  
  
 _Those lucky women,_  I think, wishing, not for the first time in my life--or even the first time this evening--for x-ray vision.  
  
“Okay, I’ve been babbling about nothing but myself for the past hour,” Xander says with a laugh. “Your turn, J.R. Tell me about yourself.”  
  
I groan, polishing off my fourth beer in as many swallows. “What’s to tell? Boy from Anytown, USA, grows up, leaves the two-storey colonial in suburbia to pursue his dream in the bright lights and big city.”  
  
“And what dream would that be?”  
  
“You’ll lose all respect for me if I tell you.”  
  
His eyes twinkle at me in silent laughter. “I lost all respect for you half an hour ago, might as well tell me.”  
  
“And the wounding continues.” I slouch in my chair, trying not to pout--not my best look--and failing.  
  
“Come on, don’t be such a whiner . . . tell me. I told you my stripping story, so you  _owe_  me, mister.”  
  
Imagining the mileage I’ll get out of the mental images that story gave me, I guess he’s right.  
  
“Fine--I guess you could say I'm in showbiz . . . and I  _should_  be home right now, working on my act, but--”  
  
"You're in stand-up, aren't you?" All kinds of bright light up those dark eyes and they're wider and rounder than ever. “Holy shit, you're a comedian!”  
  
He sounds so impressed. Obviously, he’s never met one of my ilk before. "Yeah, I'm a real laff-a-minute. Not consecutive minutes, mind, but a minute here, a minute there. I do alright."  
  
“Wow." The look he's giving me makes me wanna fuck him, then tuck him into bed with a cup of hot cocoa. "I could never do that. I mean, stripping aside, I’ve got wicked stage-fright . . . do you ever get nervous? Get afraid you’re gonna be heckled?”   
  
I try to shrug off his surely short-lived awe and fascination. “Sometimes, the only laughs I get are the results of being heckled. But that’s how it is, you know? Some nights you kill, some nights you  _get_ killed--the circle of life continues.”  
  
“Hakuna matata.” Xander toasts me with his Magners, the same one he’s been nursing all evening, and takes a sip. The waiter bustles over for my empty and leaves a full in it’s place. For a few minutes, neither Xander or I talk, just stare at our drinks or at each other. His gaze is a strange mixture of nostalgia and desire, which gets me to wondering about this “Jesse” I remind him of.  
  
“So . . . can I ask you something that's very personal and none of my business at all?”  
  
I'm a sucker for his smile. I'm a sucker  _period_. “Sure. I may not answer, but ask away.”  
  
“This friend of yours, this--other Jesse . . . were you and he--?”  
  
The opposite of being offended or evasive, Xander smiles wistfully. “Jesse was my best friend. He was also straighter than a ruled edge, as far as I know.”  
  
“Was?” I ask, and there’s that flash of surprise-pain in Xander’s eyes again.  
  
“He--Jesse's dead, J.R. There was an accident five years back. . . .” Xander’s mouth purses and he takes a swig of his cider. For a moment his eyes are old and cold, like ancient ashes. “Accident . . . yeah, Sunnydale has lot of those.”  
  
“Whoa, wait-- _Sunnydale_?” I feel like a prime-A bastard for being nosy about Xander’s dead best friend, but--“You’re from  _Sunnydale_?”   
  
“Born and raised . . . what’s it to ya?” Xander’s gaze is cool, cautious.  
  
“Man, you’re from the original Twilight Zone, or didn’tcha know? Shit, you got any idea how many parapsychology theses are written on Sunnydale? How many textbooks have dedicated whole chapters to your hometown?” I have to laugh. “A Sunnydale native . . . fuck me sideways. This is like meeting a celebrity!”  
  
“You’re kidding, right?” Xander asks, all dark-eyed confusion.  
  
“I kid you not, brown eyes. Your hometown is on the map. And that weird case of mass hallucination last summer?" I shake my head. "A whole town fulla people seein’ dragons and vampires and demons and lights in the sky . . . you wanna bet shit like that’ll make the six o’clock news!”  
  
“Mass hallucination,” Xander murmurs, rolling the phrase around his mouth, as if he’s never heard it before, which is impossible, seeing where he comes from. “Is that what they’re saying happened?”  
  
“Yeah . . . no one's claiming anything else, actually. For once. Even the conspiracy nuts on the internet aren't saying peep that isn't government issue."  
  
Xander’s still smiling, but his eyes are angrier than any I’ve ever seen. Then they flutter shut and he takes a deep, deep breath, exhaling shakily.  
  
"I've seen things happen, J.R.; things that'd make you shit your pants. I watched people I love die at the hands of things that shouldn't even exist. Mass hallucination? Bullshit. I could tell you exactly what happened, down to my last breath. . . ."  
  
When no details are forthcoming, I cover his hand with my own--paltry comfort, but all I can give since I honestly don’t know what to say.  
  
A small part of me wants to hear what he was going to say, hear what put the darkness in his eyes and the bitter edge in his smile. But a much larger part of me just doesn’t want to know. I’ve never been to Sunnydale, but I’ve seen enough strange things in my short life to know there are some things I simply do not want to know.  
  
It’s a luxury, that not-knowing; a luxury not everyone has been afforded.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” I say, squeezing his hand gently. His eyes open immediately, startled. “Sorry you had to grow up in the Bermuda Triangle of North America, sorry it sucked your friends under . . . But I’m glad you’re here and alive--glad you’re a survivor.”  
  
For a moment, something cold and almost  _alien_  moves in Xander’s eyes. “Yeah. Survival. That’s the name of the game . . . and everyone’s playing,” he says distractedly, looking down at his hand in mine. He bites his fingernails, I’ve noticed. The tips look so raw and worked over, they’ve gotta hurt. I should be grossed out but I just wanna kiss his fingertips until pain of any kind is the furthest thing from his mind. . . .  
  
Shit.   
  
“Hey, wanna hear a joke?” I blurt out, all the while kicking myself. Not only for putting myself on the spot, but for already being so invested in his moods.  
  
“Um, sure.” He looks up at me expectantly, his poor fingers momentarily forgotten. I dig through the vault of useless crap that is my mind and come up with a joke that always put a smile on my face.  
  
“Why did the chicken cross the playground?”  
  
After a few seconds to think it over--his nose wrinkles slightly when he thinks and damn, that's gotta be the cutest thing I've ever seen--Xander shrugs. “I dunno, why?”  
  
“To get to the other  _slide_.” I finish with the kind of comedic timing and emphasis that comes only with practice or with being Don Rickles--but to a distinct lack of laughter or applause.   
  
Xander’s biting his lip and smiling as if he’s trying to find the most tactful way to phrase his response.  
  
“I think I may know why you’ve been getting heckled,” he says finally.  
  
“That wasn’t actually one of  _my_  jokes!” It’s not, but I’m still kinda offended, I mean, that's a playground  _classic_ , as American as guns and cheerleaders.   
  
“Really?” Xander sighs in apparent relief. “Oh, thank heavens.”  
  
“I thought it’d make you laugh.” I get a doubtful eyebrow quirk that only makes me jump to the defense of my borrowed joke. “It’s  _funny_!”  
  
“Yeah, so funny I forgot to laugh.”  
  
“You’re really taking a wrecking-ball to my ego, Xan.”  
  
He leans closer to me. “So are you gonna invite me back to your place, or tell me more bad jokes till I actually  _do_  run screaming into the night?”  
  
“I’m telling you, it’s a fucking  _hilarious_  joke--”  
  
“Okay, you’re  _so_  missing the point of what I just said.” Xander rolls his eyes and leans even closer. Close enough for me to see how dilated his pupils are. “Invite me back to your place, J.R.”  
  
Oh.  
  
“You’re not just buildin' me up, buttercup, baby, just to get let me down?” Yes, I’m the king of cool, all bow before me.  
  
“Or mess you around?" Xander's wry smile turns wistful again. "No, I’m 99.998% sure I won't be letting you down or messing you around. Hey-hey-hey,” he reassures me, turning his hand in mine to stroke my palm and wrist. I swallow and it sounds louder than a gun-shot.  
  
"Well, them's my kinda odds." I clear my throat and, in my best wish-I-sounded-like-Barry-White-instead-of-a-whitebread-tenor voice, ask: “So, baby, wanna come back to my place and look at my etchings?”   
  
Xander laughs and for a moment--must be the beer--I could swear his eyes flicker as yellow as an alley cat’s. But the moment passes and Xander’s still stroking my wrist and oh, God, am I hard.   
  
“I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
